NONI IS A UNIQUE TROPICAL FRUIT that is grown in the Pacific Islands. It is known to the Pacific Island people as a beneficial food. Typically it is taken as a drink to enhance bodily function and support overall good health. It is widely known as the “Aspirin of the Ancient”. It’s been successfully used for over 2,000 years in Polynesia, China India and elsewhere and grows best wherever there is pollution free volcanic soil. Niue Island being one of many regions where it grows, has a unique feature; it is the only region in the world that can claim to be totally “Organic” in its horticulture.
“None” is the Cook Islands name for what we here call “Noni”. In Niue the fruit has been used medicinally for hundreds of years. Today, when you travel to Niue, you will often see local people picking some of their shrubs. When Niuens do not feel well, whatever the cause, they tend to try the fruit first.
Botanically the fruit is called: Morinda Citrifolia. It grows on a shrub type tree and the size of the fruit is about the same size as a medium avocado pear. The skin has warts on it similar to a pomegranate. The shrub shows fruit some 10 months after planting. It reaches maturity in about 18 months and then yields between 4 to 8kg of fruit every month, all year round.
NONI information: folk medicine
Noni juice is a health product and a natural food. It is one of the many that have formed the basis of folk medicine known to healers for thousands of years in every culture in the world.
Noni juice attracts interest from science and medicine
Since World War II, scientists and medical researchers have become increasing interested in traditional, natural health products, such as noni juice, since they recognize there are health values in many of these old cures. In this they imitate the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, who lived over 2000 years ago in Greece and said, “Let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food!” Today we might say it a different way, “You are what you eat.” This is what noni juice drinkers know!
Folk remedies of the ancient world
Folk medicine in early societies and cultures, (which knew about noni juice, of course), came from the common need people have to combat illness and sickness, and rise up after being crushed by natural disasters and accidents.
How were noni juice and other natural health products discovered?
Many Chinese believe tea comes from China where it was an antidote for poisonous herbs and made famous in this way by Emperor Shen-Nong, who was fas cinated with herbs and regularly tested herbs while looking for new medicines. Chinese believe his study was the beginning of herbal medicine. But an almost identical story is found in the legends of Polynesia. There, these stories say, medicine men hunted for plants with properties for relieving or curing diseases and keeping the best health. Among the plants they found was the noni fruit, Morinda citrifolia. But whatever the origins of this search for natural remedies and health foods, noni juice has blessed generations of people throughout the regions where it has grown.